Star Wars Celebrations

Time for a look back at two days of Star Wars celebrations!

This year, I have a new cookbook, so many of the recipes are from Star Wars: The Ultimate Cookbook…as a matter of fact, unless other noted, all of them were! We started day one of the celebration, May the Fourth, with “Kand and Zand Rolls” and “Hyperspace Brew.”

I made “Kyber Scones” for a lunchtime treat:

I baked “Lira San Crackers” to go with dinner:

Our beverage of choice was the “Cantina Crush,” which is very similar to our favorite Brazilian lemonade recipe, but served over ice cubes instead of crushed ice:

For dinner, I made “Batuuan Ronto Wraps” with smoked sausage and roast pork, spicy slaw, and a peppercorn sauce, just like we had at Walt Disney World and Disneyland, according to the recipe from Delicious Disney: Walt Disney World. I served them in “Ronto Wrappers” according to the recipe from the Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge cookbook.

For dessert we had “Carbonite ‘N’ Cream Pie,” which not only had chocolate and vanilla ice cream, but also Oreos!

Day two of the celebration, Revenge of the Fifth, isn’t quite as involved, but we still had a special drink, “Rim’s Edge.”

And a full dinner, featuring “Roasted Arkanian Tenderloin,” “Hynestia Spheres,” “Lammas Tree Bites,” and from the Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge cookbook, “Mustafarian Lava Buns.”

For dessert I made “Lha-Mi Glacier Bars.”

The Star Wars days have really taken on a life of their own, and I tend to do as much food prep for them as I do a more commonly-observed holiday. I love that we’ve really made this celebration a big deal, and something we all look forward to!

Tasty Tuesday–Another Disney Dinner

Last year, I cooked a whole series of “Disney Dinners,” using Delicious Disney: Walt Disney World as one of my primary inspirations for Disney-themed meals and desserts. Well, Delicious Disney has a new offering this year…The Official Disney Parks Cookbook, so I’m back at it. Here’s a look at one of the first recipes I made from the book: Shrimp boil tacos with andouille sausage and corn from the On the Cob Marketplace stand at Disney California Adventure’s Food & Wine Festival:

No Disney Dinner is complete without a Disney Dessert, so Ladybug and I also made a Honey Crunch Cake from the California Grill at Disney’s Contemporary Resort:

Both of these recipes were amazing, and I’m looking forward to trying more recipes from the cookbook in the future!

Tasty Tuesday–A Look Back at Disney Dining

For the last few months, I’ve been sharing all of the Disney Dinners I’ve made…here’s a look at each dish we tried from either a Disney cookbook, or an online resource with copycat Disney recipes:

We also tried quite a few thing while we were at the Disney parks (my favorite was the Dole Whip!):

And we enjoyed one very special dinner at the Hollywood Brown Derby:

This wraps our summer of fun Disney dinners, but I’m looking forward to trying (and retrying) recipes from our Disney cookbooks in the future, and I’ve already pre-ordered The Official Disney Parks Cookbook, which is scheduled to come out next February, so we’ll have even more new recipes to try!

Tasty Tuesday–The Eleventh Disney Diner

For our penultimate Disney Dinner of the summer, I turned to Delicious Disney for all three recipes. We started with the seasonal old fashioned from the Enchanted Rose Lounge. Yes, an old fashioned is by nature an alcoholic drink. But what my children were most interested in was the combination of fall flavors like cranberry and rosemary, so I substituted apple cider for the alcohol, which paired well with the other flavors in the drink.

For the main course, I made honey spicy crispy chicken from Nine Dragons Restaurant, a fine dining establishment in the China area of Epcot’s World Showcase. I don’t usually deep fry chicken, but I made an exception, and I’m glad I did, because this was one of the best recipes we tried all summer!

For dessert, I made Amorette’s recipe for pumpkin crème brûlée topped with sable cookies. This was kind of a disaster, because I dropped mine on the floor, breaking the ramekin in the process. I’m told it was good, though, and it kept with the “fall flavors” theme of the meal.

Stay tuned for our final summer Disney Dinner!

Tasty Tuesday–The Tenth Disney Dinner

Our tenth Disney Dinner was all about taking a second chance on the rib recipe that didn’t turn out earlier in the summer, but before we get to that, a drink I put a lot of effort into coming up with, the Frozen Sunshine from Disney’s Beach Club Resort. The more Disney Dinners we had, the harder it was to find drink recipes that didn’t include alcohol, or that could at least have the alcohol substituted out. I went through pretty much all of the recipes in our cookbooks, so I turned to the internet for copycat recipes, which is where I found this Creamsicle in a cup!

I was still upset about the “Disney Disaster” we had previously, so I gave the hoisin chili sticky ribs from Delicious Disney based on Chef Morimoto’s recipe from his restaurant at Disney Springs, Morimoto Asia, another shot, substituting baby back ribs for spare ribs. They were perfect…definitely the best ribs I’ve ever made!

For dessert, we had Mickey Mouse-shaped beignets with lavender sugar. Can you have too many Mickey-shaped treats?!?

This was a fun meal, and I really enjoyed the redemption when making the ribs!

Tasty Tuesday–The Ninth Disney Dinner, Star Wars Edition

Our ninth Disney Dinner was A Big Deal, because I tried to recapture the magic of something we tried at Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge at Hollywood Studios…but first, something new and something a little scary, the Sarjenn Snowcap, a cola slushy topped with sweetened, condensed milk. I wasn’t really sure how it would taste, but in the end it was very similar to a cola float, and very good.

The star of the meal was Batuuan Ronto Wraps, a popular item at Hollywood Studios. We shared a Ronto Wrap our first day at the park, and Turkey liked it so much, he bought his own for dinner the second day we were there. The Galaxy’s Edge version has both sliced pork and a sausage, but we had ours with just the sausage, and it really wasn’t missing much.

For dessert, we had Cavaellin Spice Creams, which were pretty much gingerbread cookie whoopee pies filled with orange cream cheese frosting.

It was fun to really have a little bit of Disney at home!

Tasty Tuesday–The Eighth Disney Dinner

I planned our eighth Disney Dinner to coordinate with a very special day…Dole Whip Day, something we were especially excited about since we had recently tried an actual Dole Whip! But first, the drink. I made Cinderella’s Midnight Magic Punch, which was delicious, pretty, and extra fun with the rock candy stirring rod!

The main course was Monte Cristo sandwiches with currant jelly sauce. I have wanted to make Monte Cristos for years, but the idea of it was always too intimidating. They really weren’t bad to make, though, and they were really, really delicious!

And in honor of Dole Whip Day, a “Frozen Pineapple Treat Inspired by Dole Whip.” I think we were all skeptical, because we liked the Dole Whip we had a the Magic Kingdom so much, and we knew it wouldn’t be quite the same, but we all agreed that it was a pretty decent facsimile!

This was an especially fun Disney Dinner because it included something we had actually tried on our trip…stay tuned for the next one, where the main course is a replica of a meal we had a Hollywood Studios!

Tasty Tuesday–The Seventh Disney (Breakfast for) Dinner

I planned our seventh Disney Dinner to coincide with Bastille Day, so I had an excuse to make S’mores French Toast Sandwiches (or “delicious hot schmoes”) as found in Hollywood Studio’s Toy Story Land. Since it was such a decadent meal, we didn’t have dessert, but who needs it when dinner looks like this?!?

For the drink, I used the recipe for Keshian Spiced Milk from the Star Wars Life Day Cookbook…it was very much like a horchata, and very tasty!

Normally I wouldn’t make something like this for dinner, but for a special occasion, it was fun, and it may even return to the table as a dessert in the future!

Tasty Tuesday–The Sixth Disney Dinner

For our first Disney Dinner after returning home from Disney World, I turned to the “sandwich of the future,” the Handwich! I chose chili as the filling, but there are so many other options…I think we might have to try some more of them! Creating the cones out of crescent roll dough was only a little tricky (the real struggle was getting them off of the forms when they were done!), and they didn’t fall apart quite as much as I expected when we were eating them.

For dessert, I made 50’s Prime Time Café-style peanut butter and jelly milkshakes (or just jelly, for Moose), which were really delicious!

This is about the halfway point in the Disney Dinners I planned, so there’s more fun to come…stay tuned!

Tasty Tuesday–Disney Drinks and Dessert

What was supposed to be our fourth Disney Dinner turned into a major Disney Disaster (I tried a new recipe for spare ribs that just did not turn out), but we still had the drinks and dessert I had planned as part of the meal, starting with the Poisonless Dart, which featured mint and lime:

For dessert, I made Traditional Bread and Butter Pudding with Sauce Anglaise. I love bread pudding, and this recipe did not disappoint!

Hopefully I have a little more success with our next Disney Dinner!